chapter 4

Chapter 4

"Why would I be your Doll?"

The words came out before I could stop them. I was still holding the contract, still standing in my doorway with Adrian Volkov and his lawyer and his two security men filling up the narrow landing, and my sister was behind me, and I could feel her confusion turning into something sharper.

Adrian looked at me. Slow. Deliberate. His eyes traveled down my body and back up again, and when he spoke, his voice was flat. Confident. Like he was reading a grocery list.

"You have nice breasts. And a fine backside."

Mia made a sound behind me. A choked laugh, or a gasp. I couldn't tell.

I stared at him. My face went hot. My hands tightened on the contract. "That's why? That's your reason?"

"It's enough of a reason." He didn't smile. Didn't blink. "You asked. I answered."

Before I could respond, Mia stepped around me. She was leaning against the doorframe now, one hand on her hip, her whole posture shifting into something I recognized. The flirty thing. The one that had gotten her out of speeding tickets and into bars she wasn't old enough for.

"If she doesn't agree," Mia said, batting her eyelashes, "I'd happily pay off her debt and be your Doll."

Adrian's gaze slid to her. Just for a second. Then back to me.

"This doesn't concern you."

Mia's smile flickered. She opened her mouth to say something else, but I grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

"Mia. Stop."

"What?" She looked at me like I was crazy. "El, he's hot. He's clearly rich. I'm just saying—"

"You don't know what you're saying."

She frowned. Looked at Adrian. Looked at the contract in my hands. Something clicked behind her eyes.

"What happened?" she asked. "What did you do?"

I didn't answer. I was still looking at Adrian, still trying to find the crack in his composure, the thing that would tell me this was a bluff.

It wasn't.

"Two hours," he said. "Pack what you need. My car will be outside."

He turned and walked down the stairs. The lawyer followed. The security men followed. Their footsteps echoed in the stairwell, and then there was silence.

I closed the door.

Mia was standing in the middle of the living room, her arms crossed, her face a mix of confusion and something that looked like excitement. "Okay," she said. "Spill. What happened? Who is that? Why does he want you to be his doll?"

I leaned against the door. My legs didn't feel like they belonged to me.

"I hit his car."

Mia waited.

"On purpose," I said.

Her eyebrows went up.

"It's been following me for two weeks," I said. "The same black sedan. I saw it everywhere. I thought—I don't know what I thought. Last night, I was driving home, and I saw it behind me, and the street was empty, and I just... I turned around. I hit it. On purpose."

Mia stared at me. "You hit a stranger's car. On purpose."

"Yes."

"Why would you do that?"

"Because I thought he was following me!"

"And was he?"

I opened my mouth. Closed it. "He said he wasn't."

"So you hit an innocent man's car." Mia's voice was climbing. "How much damage are we talking?"

"Forty‑two thousand dollars."

She went quiet.

"The car was an Aston Martin," I said. "Limited edition. He says I have no insurance, no assets, no way to pay. He says he can take me to court and bury me."

"So he wants you to..." She pointed at the contract. "What? Move in with him? Be his girlfriend? What does 'Doll' even mean?"

I looked down at the contract. I hadn't read past the first page. I didn't want to.

"I don't know," I said. "But I don't have a choice."

Mia was quiet for a long moment. Then she looked at me with those big eyes, the ones she'd been using to get what she wanted since we were kids.

"Can I at least have your car?"

I stared at her.

"What?" She shrugged. "You're not gonna need it if you're living in some billionaire's mansion. And mine got repossessed, remember?"

"You want my car."

"It's better than nothing. And you owe me for all those months I let you be the favorite."

I didn't have the energy to fight. "Fine."

She smiled. Then her phone buzzed, and she looked at the screen, and her smile turned into something sharper.

"I'm calling Marcus," she said.

"Mia. Don't."

"He should know. He's your boyfriend."

"He's not—" I stopped. "We're not—"

"Whatever you are, he should know." She was already typing. "If some rich guy is taking you away, he should at least have a chance to fight for you."

She hit send before I could stop her.

I walked into my room and closed the door. I pulled my suitcase from the closet and started packing. Jeans. Sweaters. The few nice things I owned. My laptop. My tablet. My sketchbook, the one with the architecture drawings I'd stopped making after my father died.

I worked fast. If I stopped, I'd think. If I thought, I'd panic. If I panicked, I'd do something stupid, like call the police, or run, or beg.

I didn't want to beg.

The hour passed. Then another half hour. I zipped the suitcase and sat on the edge of my bed. The room looked smaller than I remembered. The walls were bare. The window faced the alley. I'd lived here for three years, and I'd never bothered to make it feel like home.

Maybe I'd known, somewhere deep down, that I wasn't supposed to stay.

A knock on the front door. Not the calm, commanding knock from before. This one was frantic. Desperate.

"Elara!"

Marcus.

I got up and walked to the living room. Mia was already at the door, letting him in. He looked like he'd run the whole way. His hair was a mess. His shirt was untucked. His eyes were wild.

"What the hell is going on?" He crossed the room in three steps, grabbed my arms, looked me over like he was checking for damage. "Mia said some guy is taking you? Some contract? What contract?"

I pulled back. Not hard, just enough to break his grip.

"Marcus—"

"Who is he? Where is he? I'll talk to him. I'll—"

"You can't."

"Why not?"

I looked at him. He was a good guy. He'd always been a good guy. He called when he said he would. He remembered my birthday. He never pushed for more than I was willing to give.

But when I looked at him, I didn't feel anything. No spark. No heat. Just a dull warmth, like a blanket that was too thin for winter.

"Marcus," I said. "I hit his car. It was an expensive car. I don't have the money. He's giving me a way to pay it off without going to court."

"By making you his doll?" His voice cracked. "What does that even mean? Elara, that's not—you can't just—"

"I signed the contract."

The words hung in the air.

Marcus stared at me. His hands dropped to his sides.

"When?" he asked.

"Just now."

"How much?"

"Forty‑two thousand."

He blinked. "Forty‑two—Elara, that's not—we could have figured something out. I could have—"

"You don't have that kind of money."

"I could have asked my parents. I could have taken out a loan. I could have—"

"Marcus." I put my hand on his arm. "It's done."

He shook his head. His jaw was tight. I could see him trying to find a way out, some solution I hadn't thought of, some loophole that would make this not real.

"At least make him give you an allowance," he said finally. "Something for you. For Mia. For—just in case. If he's a billionaire, he won't even notice. That way the three of us have something to fall back on."

I almost said no. Almost.

Then I thought about the contract. About what I was walking into. About the fact that I had seventy‑three dollars in my checking account and no way to get more.

"Okay." I said.

He pulled me into a hug. Held me tight. When he pulled back, his eyes were wet.

"I'll figure something out," he said. "I'll get you out of this. I promise."

I didn't answer. I didn't want to lie to him.

The headlights swept across the window.

I looked out. A black car was idling at the curb. Not the same one from last night. A sedan, sleek and dark, with tinted windows and a driver sitting behind the wheel.

I picked up my suitcase and opened the door. Walked down the stairs. The third step creaked. The light flickered. Mrs. Patterson's door was closed, and the baby wasn't crying for once, and everything was quiet.

The driver got out. A man in a black suit, expressionless. He took my suitcase and opened the back door.

I got in.

The interior was leather. Warm. It smelled like cedar, the same scent that had been on Adrian's clothes. I pressed my back against the seat and watched my apartment building shrink in the window.

The car pulled onto the main road. I watched the streetlights pass overhead, one after another, casting the inside of the car in flashes of orange and dark. I watched the neighborhood change. The bodegas became boutiques. The empty lots became manicured lawns. The street I'd grown up on, the one where I'd learned to ride a bike and walked to school and watched my father leave for the last time, disappeared behind me.

We passed the intersection. The one where I'd hit his car.

I looked at it. Empty. Quiet. Like nothing had ever happened there.

The driver didn't say anything. I didn't say anything. The car just kept going, taking me further from everything I knew.

We turned onto a private road. Gates swung open without stopping. The road curved through trees, old oaks with branches that arched overhead like a tunnel. Then the trees opened, and I saw it.

The mansion.

It was huge. Not just big. Huge. Stone walls, tall windows, lights burning on every floor. It sat at the top of a hill like it was waiting for something. Like it had been waiting for me.

The car pulled up the driveway. Gravel crunched under the tires. We stopped at the front steps, and the driver got out and opened my door.

I stepped out. The air was cool here, cleaner than it was in my neighborhood. I could smell grass, flowers, something green and growing and no crying babies or ally cats.

I looked up at the house. At the windows, dark and watching. At the door, heavy wood, taller than I was. At the steps leading up to it, stone worn smooth by time.

My suitcase was on the ground beside me.

I picked it up. I walked up the steps. The door opened before I could knock, and there was a butler, his face unreadable.

"Welcome home," he said.

I stepped inside.

The door closed behind me with a sound like a lock turning.